About: Marcus van Heller's Roman Orgy skillfully captured the savage, sprawling epic of the rebellion of the slaves led by Spartacus, and the tragic failure of their rise against the Roman Empire.

Now, in The Loins of Amon, the same scholarly acumen is again evident as van Heller brings to life ancient Egypt, with the bizarre religious rites of the Pharaohs, and the story of one man's struggle against cruelty!

Based on years of historical and archaeological research by this well-known novelist, who is, at the same time, a famous authority in this particular field, The Loins of Amon is a superb re-creation of a turbulent era.

Excerpt:

It was here, looking out over the placid stretch of the Nile, that his own villa and gardens had been built. His villa was beautiful; wall-surrounded, shaded with trees and shrubbery, laced with walks and arbors.

Ineni liked to live well—but he did not hoard wealth. He gave to the poor and encouraged them to reap the benefit of their own labors when they came under his jurisdiction. Would that he had jurisdiction over all, in the place of Ramses and the priests. He would build new homes for the peasants at the cost of the useless glut of temples with which the priests were dotting the plain of Thebes. He would see that the peasants received the stocks of food, which at present endowed the temples to line the fat bellies of the priests. But what hope now?

At the gates of his villa he dismounted, leaving his servants to tend to the horse.

His mind flickered back to the events of the afternoon. He was not out of sympathy with the initiation rites, but to kill so many beautiful maidens was not, he felt sure, to fulfill the wishes of Amon, who would surely want his people to be as happy and powerful as possible.

He might, himself, have selected a woman had it not been in such proximity to the priests. But, anyway, his own harem was sufficient to provide him with the sexual variety he needed.

It was true that tomorrow he would have to begin preparations for the long trek from the Delta through the arid eastern desert. Tonight he would indulge.

In the cool shade of his villa, Ineni dined with his three favorite concubines. Two were slim, soft-eyed Egyptians, the other a strong, large-boned woman who had been brought back from early campaigns in Palestine. Her firm, fierce features made a passionate contrast with the soft submission of the others.

Ineni sat on a small stool of ebony, the women at his feet on rugs while the food was served. The meal was rich: fish which Ineni had caught himself in the swamps of the Delta, poultry, bread and cakes, several kinds of fruit and strong cool wines. The women, voluptuous in their long, close-fitting robes, were sad at the imminent departure of their lord, their eyes deep and thoughtful as the dancing girls appeared at the end of the meal.

The dancing girls, as usual, were without any covering. Trained from infancy, their bodies were as supple as papyrus stems and as lacking in any superfluity to spoil their graceful symmetry. Their bodies swayed and twirled, breasts and buttocks trembling lightly at the rapidity of movements, the lack of hair at their thigh junctions making them seem even more nude as the slim folds of flesh between their legs tautened and relaxed with their dancing steps.

They moved in fluid patterns close to Ineni so that none of their charms was hidden. The slight fleshy tensions of their bottoms as they moved, the silken ripple of their thighs, the unconcealed thrustings of their crotches, all in an overwhelmingly close intimacy.

Ineni felt the hot tension of his loins, the power and heat stirring and throbbing there. He stretched out his hand and caressed the long, smooth neck of one of the Egyptian women, his hand stroking gently over her soft, velvet skin, the firm bone of her jaw. She turned towards him and, reaching up from the floor, gently moved her hand under the hem of his tunic, rubbing his calf softly. Under his tunic, his penis was bulging powerfully now, pulsing and hugely fierce, and the woman's hand crept up under the garment, slipping over the hairy joint of his knee and on, inexorably up the broad thigh. Eyes still on the dancers, Ineni slipped the straps of her robe from her shoulders, and with a wriggle of her slim torso, she had eased it from off her breasts so that it flopped in a fringe around her waist.

He looked down at her for the first time, at the smooth, brown expanse of shoulder sweeping down into hills of breasts, coppery and ripe. His hand slipped down between the mounds and then out across a breast, savoring it with every pore of his skin, cupping the taut nipple.